Sunday, August 13, 2017

Unopened in My Collection: Topps Glossy Mini League Leaders

In addition to collecting the main sets, I always liked the offbeat side projects from the main card companies in the 1980s -- things like Fleer Star Stickers and Donruss Pop-Ups. In that vein, I bought quite a few Topps "Super Glossy" Major League Leaders.

A full box of 1986 Topps minis, and a few packs from 1987 and 1990. In the 1987 pack on top, you can see through the wrapper that Bert Blyleven is the first card.

Of course I opened most of these that I bought, and I have a couple of boxes with cards from 1986 through 1990. Among the unopened part of my collection, the pictured Topps minis are what I have -- a full box from 1986, a few packs from 1987, and a few more from 1990. I think this set appealed to me in a couple of ways, in addition to just being different. On the statistics side, since it focused on who led the league in different categories, it helped to learn some of all the baseball data that used to fill my head. Also, there were a lot of small sets back then, that tended to have about 30 cards and mostly featured the same players. This was a little bigger than that, and so featured a wider selection of stars and near-stars.

1 comment:

These minis were the forerunners to the premium cards of the late 1980s and 1990s in a few ways -- thick white cards stock, glossy finish, colored cello wrappers. I always wished Topps would have done a complete base set in one these styles. Thanks for sharing!

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About Me

Growing up, I had a few baseball cards starting with some 1979 Topps, but started seriously collecting when I could go to the local 7-Eleven by myself to buy packs of 1987 Topps. When the 1994 strike happened, I checked out completely from baseball and baseball cards for about 20 years. Since 1994, until the summer of 2017, my cards were in storage at my parents' house. I have now reclaimed them and have returned to the collecting world.

The Pirates have long been my favorite team, but I grew up watching the Phillies and, to a lesser extent, the Orioles.